


verdant

by goodnightpuckbunny



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Magical Realism, Pining, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-06 05:00:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18844132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightpuckbunny/pseuds/goodnightpuckbunny
Summary: Kris has been in love; it’s not a new thing.





	verdant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sadhockeytrashbaby (aggressivelybicaptainamerica)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aggressivelybicaptainamerica/gifts).



> Inspired by [this](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49236/one-hundred-love-sonnets-xvii) prompting poem! I wanted challenge myself to do a different pairing than my usual, and it was a lot harder than expected. This is set in the 2008-2009 season. I hope you enjoy!

_“I love you as one loves certain obscure things,_

_secretly, between the shadow and the soul._

_I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries_

_the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself...”_

—Pablo Neruda

* * *

Kris starts budding in early July—tiny brown bumps that itch. He picks at them. He scratches without thinking about it, digging his nails into his skin until blood trickles down, cooling as it dries in rusty tracks. The buds soften after a few days, and then split, tender green leaves unfurling. He tries to pluck one, but it stings like white-hot lightning all the way up his arm and into his spine, like he’s yanking the nerve out. So he leaves them to spread.

The leaves are not very big. The largest is about the size of his thumbnail. He has to wear big, baggy hoodies through the sweltering middle of summer straight into autumn. The whole thing is an unforgivable affront to his sense of style, but the worst is when he’s undressing for an informal practice before training camp.

“My God,” Marc-André whistles as Kris pulls off his sweater. “I thought you were hiding in those ugly clothes because you got fat over the summer.”

“It’s nothing,” Kris argues. Marc reaches out to trail his hand over the tiny leaves, and sensation zings up Kris’ arm again—though it’s not painful like when he bumps up against something or when he scratches his itching skin.

Marc grins his shit-disturbing grin. Kris doesn’t find it even a little bit endearing. “You’re in love, my friend.”

Kris has _been_ in love; it’s not a new thing. He’s become exceedingly good at shoving it down but—he thinks—the loss to the Wings in the final had cracked his heart wide open and the resulting flood fed the vines of his affections. Now they’ve manifested, and everyone can see it.

He rakes his hair back from his forehead, and grins right back. “It was a good vacation,” he lies.

 

Marc-André is a ridiculous person to fall in love with. He’s temperamental and mischievous, and far too invested in his schemes. He’s always goofing off when he should be serious. He’s cut Kris’ underwear to shreds half a dozen times this season alone. He has a stupid smudgy thumbprint beard that Kris wants to feel under his own lips.

They lose their fifth in a streak, a shutout loss in New York. Marc huddles next to Kris in the airport on the way home like the chill, dry night has followed him inside. He rubs Kris’ arm through his woolen sleeve, and _Christ above_ , it feels good. Kris can’t hold back the shiver. Marc hasn’t said a word since the end of the game, but the corner of his mouth quirks up for a second before he schools himself back into somber reflection.

He wonders if Marc knows.

It’s been almost six months, and the leaves haven’t wilted and fallen away. Kris tells people that there’s a girl from Laval who he met in the summer and continues to call regularly enough that their romance still goes strong.

At night, what he thinks about is Marc—long legs and diamonds twinkling in his eyes—and Kris wants to be taken down and owned by him. After games like these, Kris would let Marc do anything if it’d bring back his broad, sharp smile.

 

 

After the game against New Jersey, Marc is incandescent. Never mind that they win—that would be enough.

Marc had spent the morning of his favourite holiday setting off a record number of pranks, cackling and shouting, “April fools!” Then he had an assist on a goal, and bested Brodeur six to one. Now he romps around the locker room, shoving the guys in bursts of directionless energy. It’s infectious, and everyone is brimming over with delight—snapping at each other’s asses with wet towels and hollering affectionate insults across the room. Kris is called a _gorgeous motherfucker_ twice.

“Let’s celebrate,” Marc insists, corralling the Frenchmen when they’re all relatively dressed.

Pascal begs off being too old— _Not even thirty!_ Marc argues—and Max has other plans. Kris is never too busy for Marc, and tells him as much. Marc’s eyes go dramatically dewey. “That’s the only nice thing I’ll say to you all week. Don’t count on much more than insults,” Kris warns.

“Ah, such a shame,” Marc says. He wraps an arm across Kris’ shoulders where the leaves have begun to conquer. “Let’s go find some trouble. I need to get my dick sucked.”

 _I’ll do it_ , Kris thinks. He wants to get on his knees for Marc, swallowing his slender cock and choking on it. Or he could just as well let Marc roll him over and take control. He’s deceptively strong for how skinny he looks hidden under all his layers of gear.

But Kris just slaps Marc’s shoulder. “You deserve it.”

They don’t end up going to a bar. Instead, they go back to Marc’s place. Kris picks up a pizza on the way, and Marc goes for beers. They watch American late night TV while they eat and drink, starting sitting side-by-side, but slumping together as the evening wears on. The plush couch cushions threaten to swallow Kris whole. He watches the blue-white light flicker over Marc’s beloved face in the dark, and the way his impish mouth twists with laughter.

Kris doesn’t know when he falls asleep, only that he wakes up. He’s still on the couch and the weight of Marc next to him is like a gravitational pull. His head is on Marc’s chest, kind of, and his stomach full of greasy pizza and foamy beer keeps his eyelids heavy. He’s not comfortable: there’s a crick in his neck and he has to pee. Nothing short of an earthquake is going to move him.

Marc’s fingers twitch against the tender new leaf growth on Kris’ forearm. Kris is too sleepy and sated to hold back the low moan that resonates from his core. 

“We’re going to the playoffs,” Marc whispers, as if God will hear him and send a lightning bolt for the pride in his voice. Then he leans into Kris, and seemingly falls asleep. When Kris dreams, it’s of a garden, fragrant and lush.

 

* * *

 

Kris is so fucking pretty that it makes Marc’s fingers itch for a cigarette just to cool off. All of it was a bad idea, of course. He was a little younger than Marc, and as a rule he didn’t let himself take that kind of an interest in teammates anyways. The guys on the team tease Kris for being handsome and Marc joins in, a bit mean to hide how much he really meant it. The pranks he plays are almost cruel, but Marc likes to watch the spluttering aftermath when Kris finds whipped cream in his new shoes—Marc just likes watching in general. He sits in his stall and surveys the locker room, but especially Kris after a shower, a towel around his waist and his hair still dripping, unashamed. It’s as if he’s Marc’s very own secret porno mag.

He shouldn’t look at Kris like that at all, but he can’t help himself. It doesn’t mean anything.

Then Kris shows up after a short summer with tender verdant vines crawling across his skin, and in the months to come, the love-plants never blossom.

Kris doesn’t blush or stutter when he talks about the girl from back home. It doesn’t take very long for Marc to figure out that she isn’t real. He hasn’t heard any rumors about Kris Letang and his _Laval copine_ , and if there wasn’t gossiping then it wasn’t happening. That aside, Marc never caught him texting her or calling her — not like how he caught Sid texting _someone_ , which made for good ribbing for a week, or like he caught almost everyone else on the team. Kris is single, and yet the leaves still decorate him.

And after some consideration (days, really, of Marc watching Kris and trying to come up with the answer), he concludes that Kris had feelings for someone on the team.

Then he realizes it’s _him_ , unless it’s someone else, but Marc doubts it. There’s something in the way that Kris looks at him, then looks away, then looks back as if in defiance of Marc and himself and God. When Marc touches Kris’ love-plants, he goes stiff all over, sometimes swallowing hard and sometimes closing his eyes.

Marc should deal with it as soon as he finds out. He should offer to fuck Kris and get it out of both of their systems. He’s reluctant, though, and half-afraid that Kris’ sweet, little leaves will wither and fall away. And Marc is finding that he likes touching Kris even more than he likes looking at him.

So he keeps his mouth shut—the immature option, perhaps—and enjoys Kris get quietly riled up all season long.

 

 

He knew—he _knew_ they would win, but the difference between _knowing_ and _having_ is as vast as an ocean.

The Wings fans are standing on top of them, but Marc doesn’t hear them. All he hears is the cut of steel over choppy, late-period ice, the clanging of sticks crossing, the bodies of his teammates slamming the boards, the catch and release of the puck. He nearly misses a shot and it nearly goes in. A timeout is called and Marc just

breathes

as best as he can.

They pull their goalie, and the seconds tick by, one century at a time. The play stops, then starts again. Orpik goes down, back up again. Puck drop to his left. A save. A save.

A save.

The buzzer sounds, and _then_ they have it, and it’s so much better than knowing.

He’s overwhelmed by the guys, jumping on him, shouting in his ear, and he still can’t hear the Wings fans over their own exuberance.

Most of them are flowering by the time they’ve each lifted the Cup. In the locker room, the floor is covered in petals and champagne as their love-plants bloom, and flake away, and bloom again. They croon and howl to each other. Marc is covered in fat sunflowers, aching and heavy, their stalks roping down his arms.

Marc finds Kris in the crowd, though their vibrating group keeps shaking apart and reorganizing every moment, each wanting to celebrate with each. He latches onto Kris’ beard, fingers finding the edge of his jaw under the thick, beer-soaked curls. Kris is laughing, beaming, his leaves spreading over his chest, and Marc just holds his face until he calms enough to understand.

“ _Shit_ ,” Kris swears in English. He regards Marc with something like wonder. “Are you sure?”

“Time to stop hiding,” Marc says.

 

The wait to get home is its own kind of torture. Then there’s parties, and the parade, and Marc spends it all in a horny, drunk fugue, _waiting_ for Kris. And after it all, he ends up crashing for almost a full day. He passes out face-down on his bed and wakes up still mostly-dressed to the chime of the doorbell.

Marc stumbles to the door and opens it, then pulls Kris in by the front of his douchebag t-shirt. He backs Kris into the wall, closes the door, and kisses him—heedless of the sourness of his own breath and the hangover fuzz on his tongue. The room is hot and humid, but Kris’ mouth is hotter.

He moves his free hand around to Kris’ back and slips it down the back of his sweatpants, grasps a thick handful of hockey ass and moans. It’s a secret favourite of Marc’s, and he groans into the kiss.

Kris breaks off and tilts his head back. “Marc,” Kris murmurs, and his name is so sweet coming from Kris’ trembling mouth. He hasn’t trimmed his beard yet, and he smells a little stale, like he hasn’t showered after a long nap. Marc lets go of Kris’ shirt and shoves his hand beneath the waistband of Kris’ grey sweats and it’s _just_ as he thought, when his palm touches skin, slightly damp—no underwear at all.

“Did you forget something?” Marc asks, unable to keep from grinning as Kris cants his hips against Marc’s palm.

“No,” says Kris. Marc curls his hand around Kris’ cock. “Marc, I—I don’t want this to just be because of the Cup.”

Marc wholeheartedly agrees. “It’s so much more than the Cup,” though thinking about Lord Stanley’s silver chalice brings him to full hardness in his jeans. Why had he let himself fall asleep in his clothes? He needs to get out of them as soon as possible.

He takes his hands away from Kris to do just that. He unbuttons his jeans and pushes and kicks them down his legs, and then similarly takes off his shirt. He’s had to wear buttoned ones for the past few days because his sunflowers haven’t wilted or faded at all. They’ve only grown stronger and more vibrant, the bigger of the petals blushing pink.

“These are for you,” Marc says, mostly honest because _some_ are for the rest of the team.

Kris reaches out to touch, fingertips gentle against the growth.

As much as Marc thinks Kris is perhaps the most handsome man he’s ever met, and a talented defenseman, what Marc likes most is the secret softness that Kris hides under his prickly exterior. Hockey players in general are far softer than they appear, but the way that _Kris_ is melts Marc’s heart like ice cream in the sun. It hits him just right.

Then Kris leans forward and put his lips to his love-plants, and Marc shudders.

“That’s good,” Marc gasps. Kris mouths at the flowers, even presses his teeth against the petals. It feels like digging his thumb into a bruise—that delicious aching pleasure-pain. “Enough,” he says, because he can only handle so much. “Come to bed.”

“Let me suck you,” Kris replies, letting himself be shifted from Marc’s blooms.

“Anything you want,” Marc promises.

Marc has socks on his floor that he kicks under his unmade bed, and then lets Kris knock him back onto the mattress. He groans when Kris bites one of his nipples. He tugs on Kris’ hair because suddenly he’s desperate.

Kris only pulls down Marc’s boxers enough to free his cock, tucking the elastic under his balls. He presses Marc’s cock to his stomach, and licks one stripe up the underside. “I thought about this,” Kris admits, “all the time.” His presses a wet, hot kiss to the crown, and Marc groans.

“Well stop thinking and just do it.”

It’s a delight to discover that Kris is pretty fucking good at giving head. He teases Marc some more, kissing and running his fingers over Marc’s balls. Then he gets to work, going down smoothly almost all the way to the base, and sucking hard as he pulls up. It brings Marc to the edge far too quickly. He yanks at Kris’ hair and begs him to slow down, but it mostly comes out as a string of half-slurred pleas.

“ _Christ_ , fuck—” Marc yelps, not sure whether to get away or push closer into the wet heat of Kris’ mouth. Kris tongue curls around his length, and Marc can’t help but to flex his hips against the sensation, little twitches of movement that he tries to hold back so he doesn’t choke Kris. “Don’t—please, don’t—”

Kris hums, and he lets Marc slip out of his mouth enough that he can suckle again at the head. It shouldn’t be nearly enough, but it _is_ , and all at the most sensitive place on his cock. Marc bucks his hips and comes, falling out of Kris’ hold altogether and streaking his face and beard with white. Kris’ eyelashes flutter like it’s a delight to be marked.

Marc sags against the sheets, gasping, all the urgency spilled out of him in one big rush.

For a moment he can’t move or even form a thought as Kris presses his face to Marc’s thigh, but as he comes back to himself from whatever celestial plane Kris had flung him upon, he realises that Kris isn’t just resting.

He’s squeezing his cock through his sweats, the outline of it clear.

“Get up here and kiss me,” Marc says, his voice raspy.

Kris obeys, hand still holding himself, and Marc knocks it away. He dips his own hand down the front, and the other down the back like he had done at the door.

“You know, you’re so beautiful.”

Kris huffs a laugh. “Are you gonna get me off, or what?”

Marc strokes him, nice and tight. It’s a bit dry, but Kris is a little slick with sweat and precome, and it’s probably enough. Kris pants against Marc’s neck. And then Marc presses his other hand between Kris’ asscheeks, slides his fingers down until he finds Kris’ hole. He presses against it, but doesn’t dip inside. “ _Marc,_ ” Kris whines.

“Do you need me to slip you a bit, or will that be too much?”

“I need you to shut the fuck up,” Kris snaps, and clutches at Marc’s arms, at the sunflowers, and comes, getting his sweatpants and Marc’s hand sticky and wet.

Then they both lie there, exhausted by the sex and the partying.

Mostly the partying, honestly.

“That was fucking great,” Kris says at the same time Marc blurts: “I think I really like you.”

Kris pushes up on his elbows, leans over Marc, and blinks at him. “I _love_ you, Marc-André.”

Marc blushes, feeling the heat burn all the way down his neck. “No, I mean. I think I do, too. Love you.”

Kris rolls his eyes. “Don’t hurt yourself. You bloomed for me. I know what that means.” He cups Marc’s jaw in his big, warm, rough hands, and kisses him carefully—with intention.


End file.
